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OUR VIEW: If Congressman Joe Wilson were here, he would probably tell Dana Perino to shut up…to which we would say, Amen!

There are some members of the Bush 43 administration that we wish would just stop talking and go away. This week it’s Colorado native Dana Perino. The former press secretary for Bush 43 made her most recent idiotic comment to Fox today when saying that Members of Congress should attend Obama's campaign speech to Congress on jobs later this week.

She is dead wrong. It's a clear political ploy, not some statesman-like address, and if Members can spend their time a better way that should be their prerogative.

Dana Perino, former press secretary for George W. Bush, said the lawmakers should attend the session because "you're an elected leader, and it's quite a privilege to be able to be there."

Thanks, Dana. You did such a bang-up job communicating Bush's incredibly successful second term agenda that your voice is an important one.

When it comes to political stagecraft, we're pretty sure advice from the team that brought us "Mission Accomplished" is not worth heeding.

And it's not a "privilege" to sit like a 4th grader at an all-school meeting hearing the President lecture you. He could easily just propose a jobs bill, but instead Obama is going his preferred route — political showmanship and speechifying.

It is exceedingly rare for Presidents to address joint sessions of Congress outside State of the Unions (SOTU) and the fact that Obama is doing so with a clear political intention in the middle of a heating up Presidential campaign should make it obvious how inappropriate the entire event actually is.

Skipping a political pep rally is the right of every Member of Congress who doesn't feel like becoming a prop, as Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Il) has said. The 4th graders at Rollie Heath's tax hike press conference didn't realize they were being used as props, but Members are smart enough to see through the BS being peddled by President Obama and talking air heads like Dana Perino.

Speaker Boehner has decided not to have a formal rebuttal to Obama's political charade, which makes complete and obvious political sense to anyone who has been around politics longer than a few seconds. Responding from a hallway to a President who is literally standing head and shoulders above the entire Congress is degrading and only serves to strengthen the Presidential bully pulpit.

The speech is a political move and if Members don't want to be a part of that charade more power to them. Just ignore the failed former press secretaries blathering on otherwise.

A few months back we posted a video of Cory Gardner throttling an EPA bureaucrat into admitting the EPA doesn't look at the employment impact of its regulations. That video went viral quickly, racking up over 65,000 views. It was an important moment caught on tape, as it highlighted the fact that the Obama administration doesn't even bother to figure out how detrimental its new proposed regulations are to employment.

Now that infamous exchange has made it into Mitt Romney's recently released jobs plan (PDF). Check out page 28 from the report:

As we've said before, Cory Gardner is a rising star in Washington, DC. That's probably why the Democrats decided to draw Brandon Shaffer out of Gardner’s 4th CD. Why waste the resources and redistricting position on an almost-certain-to-fail campaign?

As Colorado's best Congressional fundraiser and now someone being quoted by leading Presidential candidates, Gardner is quickly making his mark on the national scene.

The messaging war over proposed EPA regulations is being dominated by conservatives like Gardner who have long complained about the devastating impacts regulation can have.

Even an audience handpicked by Diana DeGette and Nancy Pelosi in Denver complained of the heavy hand of government regulation.

Watching the Democrats play redistricting this year has been like watching an episode of Survivor…they all keep voting each other off of the island. With a small revolving cast of lawyers representing Democrats and their liberal special interest backers filing all sorts of maps, the one thing all the various delineations and designs have in common is the screwing of different Democrats.

Redistricting is the biennial process of redrawing Colorado's seven Congressional district boundaries to reflect population changes identified in the Census. Originally meant to be resolved by a bipartisan commission who was to submit maps to the State Legislature to approve, the rapacious ambition of Senate President and now CD4 candidate Brandon Shaffer caused Democrats to actually filibuster their own redistricting map, thus forcing the issue to the courts. The case is now set to be heard in October.

Throughout the process, the Democrats’ machinations have looked more and more like one of the original reality TV shows.

Let's take a look at the Democrat Tribal Council and how many of their own they have decided to vote off the electoral island in one iteration of their redistricting map or another:

How do you think that DeGette feels about being in a competitive district overnight? She might make a good witness for the Republicans on keeping Denver whole.

The only Democrat who hasn’t been targeted by his own party has been Jared Polis of Boulder — the city that Coloradans across the state begged not to be stuck with. Conspiracy theorists might even postulate that it has something to do with Polis having been a member of the vast left wing conspiracy (i.e. Pat Stryker, Al Yates, et al) who are pulling the puppet strings on redistricting for the Democrats.

Democrats haven't just voted off their own party members through their various redistricting maps, they've also tried to play some strategic games. Attentive readers might have noticed this quote from the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association's lead attorney to The Denver Post:

“What we tried to do is not reinvent the wheel,” said Gina Rodriguez, one of the attorneys for the two Latino groups.

She said their map borrows upon state Senate seats currently being drawn by a bipartisan commission. [Peak emphasis]

Interesting she'd mention the state Senate maps, as they were drawn entirely by the Democrats on the Reapportionment Commission, the state legislative cousin to redistricting.

Guess who the Chair of the Public Policy Committee at the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association is? Scott Martinez. The same Scott Martinez who is the lead attorney for the Democrats on reapportionment.

Scott Martinez is the human conflict of interest in this sordid liberal saga, representing leftist stakeholders near and far. If there is a map being drawn by liberal special interests, Martinez is never far away.

Maybe the State House Democrats should have hired him too, instead of relying on Pat Stryker and Al Yates to look out for their interests. Perhaps as the former Executive Director of the Colorado Democrat Party, Martinez had a soft spot for the upper chamber where Democrats have had more electoral luck.

The other map that has been submitted was drafted by Pueblo DA Bill Thiebaut. In his email to The Denver Post's Lynn Bartels, Thiebaut calls himself a "citizen lawyer" who is just trying to offer some non-biased information.

What he forgets to mention is he was the Democrat Senate Majority Leader last time redistricting occurred 10 years ago, which drew a map that is strikingly similar to the one drafted by Republicans this go-round.

He also had a lawyer for his redistricting map court filing: Stan Matsunaka. Matsunaka was a Democrat Senate President and unsuccessfully ran for Congress in CD4 in 2002 and 2004.

Who do Democrats think they're fooling? Flooding the zone on redistricting with Democrat proposals in all but name is a pretty obvious and poorly played move.

Maybe the Democrats should stick to voting off their own members in Tribal Council — they're certainly not in the running for Survivor All Stars.

The two leading Democrat challengers in Congressional races this cycle face a thorny and difficult dilemma: will they campaign with a President who is most likely going to receive less than 50% of the vote in their respective Congressional districts? With an unpopular incumbent who Governor Hickenlooper says will "have a hard time" winning re-election, these two candidates have to figure out soon how closely tied to Obama they want to be. Based on the results of the latest NBC/WSJ poll, it's probably not in their best interest to be too close.

We wonder how the general consultants attached to Pace and Shaffer's campaigns are reacting to this news this morning from Reuters:

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of 1,000 U.S. adults showed Obama's overall job approval rating at a low of 44 percent, down 3 percentage points since July, while his handling of the economy stands at 37 percent.

A Democratic pollster who helped conduct the survey said the poor results, which contain a 3.1 percentage-point margin of error, suggest Obama is no longer favored to win re-election in 2012.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll of U.S. adults showed that six in 10 Americans rate the president's job on the economy and jobs negatively, while one in three say they are now worse off financially since Obama entered the White House. It has a 3.5 percentage point margin of error.

A third poll of 1,000 likely voters by Washington-based Politico and George Washington University found that 72 percent of voters believe the country is either strongly or somewhat headed in the wrong direction, a jump of 12 percent since last May. That survey's results have a 3.1 percentage point error margin.

What all recent polling and past election performance demonstrates is that Obama is sure to be an electoral albatross. Whether Democrats chose to wear that albatross themselves or let the Republicans lay it on them is the big, unanswered question at this point.

Either way, we'll find out in only three weeks time when Obama comes to raise dollars in Colorado. It will be only his second trip back to the Centennial State since signing the failed stimulus bill here — an ignominious notation sure to be mentioned in every media write up of his trip.

When Obama arrives in Denver, will Sal Pace and Brandon Shaffer be there to greet him?

If you missed the great scoop by the Colorado Statesman's Jody Strogoff on Rick Perry's gargantuan fundraising haul in Aspen, it's a must read for this weekend. The detailed and lengthy look into Perry's fundraiser in the liberal sanctuary provides some key insight into Perry’s budding Colorado campaign.

We asked Strogoff how she got in, but she declined to answer. Fair enough — we wouldn't divulge our trade secrets either.

Perry is currently racing around the country, trying to play catch up on fundraising. Where he's digging for dollars in Colorado shines some light on the early stages of Perry’s effort to build a campaign infrastructure in the Centennial State.

The fundraiser was hosted by two former Gubernatorial candidates, Marc Holtzman and Scott McInnis, though he's surely hoping for better luck in the election than his two hosts have had.

The story strongly hints at the fact that McInnis and Holtzman, and ostensibly their supporters and teams, will play a central role in Perry’s Colorado operation. In the case of Perry and McInnis, their friendship goes back almost three decades. The article provides some colorful detail on their friendship:

Before Perry addressed his supporters, former Congressman Scott McInnis, a Republican from Grand Junction, provided a couple personal anecdotes about his longtime friend. He and Gov. Perry have known each other for the last 25 or 30 years.

It was one of those good news/bad news stories, McInnis said as he began his tale by mentioning his wife Lori, a fifth generation cattle rancher from Meeker on whose family ranch the story played out. McInnis recalled his frequent invites to Perry to elk hunt on the ranch, an activity the two enjoyed doing together over the years.

The most eye-popping part of the story is the size of the fundraising haul. Perry's Aspen fundraiser pulled in a whopping $175,000 in less than two hours. As Strogoff notes, that is the largest in GOP Aspen fundraising history. Not bad for a candidate in the race barely two weeks.

The size of the haul hints at a significant split in the Colorado GOP establishment. While many of the big names and former elected officals have lined up behind Mitt Romney, it appears a sizeable cavalry of big-dollar donors are looking elsewhere.

For more on the fundraiser, and the full detail of the Perry/McInnis relationship, you can read about in the Colorado Statesman here.

State Senator Bob Bacon (D-Ft. Collins) blasted out a fundraising email on Wednesday on behalf of his boss, Senate President and CD4 candidate "Brandon-Mander" Shaffer. In the email he makes a unique pitch for Shaffer's campaign — don't worry that the Democrats’ redistricting map moves Shaffer's home in Longmont out of the exact Congressional district he is running in–Shaffer is running "regardless."

Seeking to sooth concerns among Shaffer supporters that his own party threw him "under the bus," Bacon's email only serves to further the Democrat civil war redistricting narrative. Beyond the narrative, if the Democrat map is chosen by the court, Shaffer stands all of zero and no chance of winning CD4.

From Sen. Bacon's email:

You may have heard that there is a lot of discussion about redistricting in Colorado and Brandon has assured me that regardless of what happens, he will be a candidate for Congress in 2012! [Peak emphasis]

Don't worry Democrats who have donated your dollars already — he'll spend them on a campaign whether it's winnable or not. And while we're on the subject, please send some good money after bad.

While state Representatives and Senators must live in the districts they represent by law, Congressmen have no such legal limitations. Of course, it doesn't sell very well with voters when you don't even live in the area you seek to represent, but you can at least legally mount a campaign.

If Shaffer's campaign is mounted with his house actually in Congressman Jared Polis's (D-Boulder) district, CD2, it could create an odd scenario: Shaffer couldn't even vote for himself.

Considering Shaffer filibustered his own redistricting map in the Senate this past session, when he couldn't get a map Brandon-Mandered to improve his electoral prospects, he's probably already comfortable with not voting for his own side.

OUR VIEW: Will’s praise of Hick for his willingness to “avoid the big fights” is not a hallmark of leadership, and most definitely not something for anyone to brag about.

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We are inclined as anyone to want to drive a wedge between state and local Democrats and their errant Emperors in Washington, DC who are on the ballot next November. However, George Will's gushing column about John Hickenlooper, where our Guv is implicitly shown as the moderate to Obama's liberal, goes beyond the illustrious domain of the believable.

Hickenlooper, if you are to buy the Will column and same-same reporting from Politico earlier this week, has been busy courting the Washington press in hopes of gussying up his moderate street cred…and distancing himself from the Electoral Titanic that is Barack Obama in particular and progressivism in the broader.

Before we unload on his Highness Mr. Will (and we mean that…we love George Will) it is important to point out that Obama and liberals must be exactly outraged that a swing state Governor is out undermining the standing of their left wing crusade. That a "finger in the wind" politician like Governor Hickenlooper is tip-toeing away from Sirota and Soros is more than a little telling. Hick is good at pandering to the masses, and he clearly senses that the country is fleeing Big Government Leftism.

Still, in heaping praise on Hick as a Manifest Destiny libertarian who can do no wrong, Will triggers the gag reflexes of everyone who knows better.

Yes, Hick is a likable guy. What kind of politician isn't that jumps out of planes for campaign commercials?

Yes, he is a quirky and savvy politician who understands the business cycle better than most Democrats in Colorado — though that is not a high bar to cross. But let's remember he cruised to victory last November without having a single moment of concern over his electoral prospects after about the first week in July.

Never having to take any risks, or positions for that matter, in order to secure the top spot in Colorado government has made Hick spoiled. He's the electoral version of a trust fund baby.

That sense of not needing to risk much to succeed has spilled over into his Gubernatorial tenure.

First, by simply hiding from a tax increase, Hick makes clear that he enjoys counting his political capital more than he does expending it.

[Hick] says, “We are such a purple state” — Colorado is about one-third Republican, one-third Democrat and one-third unaffiliated — “we can avoid the big fights.”

Last we checked a balanced voter registration did not excuse the Governor from having to engage in substantive areas of disagreement among political parties.

Prop 103 will be asking voters if they want to hike taxes by $3 Billion and kill nearly 120,000 jobs in Colorado. As the state's CEO, voters might want to hear his opinion when weighing their options.

Prop 103 also speaks to Hick's moderate street cred. He avoided backing a tax increase early in his mayoral tenure, only to save that capital to spend on hiking taxes later on. Will Prop 103 merely become a foil for Hick to gin up great press about his moderate leanings, only to support a larger and longer tax increase later?

If so, it's important to hear his reasons for opposing Prop 103 now.

Secondly, he has brought virtually none of his renowned business savvy to bear in actual and substantive regulatory reform. Despite teasing a desire to propose a major regulatory overhaul during his first legislative session, when his political capital was primed at the pump, he balked at throwing down the gauntlet.

Will praises the possibility of John Hickenlooper, based mostly on his personal narrative, but we think it's important to look at the reality of Governor Hickenlooper.

He's a quirky, successful businessman and savvy political operator who has accomplished pretty much jack and squat so far.

Statewide listening tours are smart politics, but if they yield little more than photo ops and generic policy statements, rather than specific policy reforms, they don't mean much in real terms.

John Hickenlooper is a good guy, with a great story, but what kind of Governor is he?

Since he hasn’t risked much do we really even know what kind of politician he is? Liberalism may be on the outs with the American people, but is Hickenlooper’s inner liberal merely lying in wait?

Colorado government released a report this summer that may help us evaluate the upcoming Obama jobs speech.

First, some background. Anthony Mirhaydari from MSN Money said:

“Obama also selected Alan Krueger, a Princeton labor economist and one of the architects of the Cash for Clunkers auto rebate program, as the new head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. An expert on the problem of long-term unemployment, Krueger may push worker training subsidies as a solution to the problem of long-term unemployment, something I discussed in a recent column.”

If job training appears in Obama’s speech, we may be able to wager on such a program’s effectiveness or ineffectiveness based on a green jobs report prepared by the Colorado Department of Labor and CU’s Business Research Division. It’s available here (H/T: Peoples Press Collective).

On page 19 of the report, 15.6% of survey respondents ranked “training programs” for their workers as factoring into business expansion plans. Only “public marketing” scored lower! So, at least for green jobs, government-sponsored training programs don’t seem to matter all that much.

(I admit that’s too bad. Germany in recent years has used its apprenticeship programs to boost global competitiveness and retain jobs in this world wide economic slowdown. But it just may be that our educational system and Germany’s are enough different that worker training isn’t a broad factor in our country.)

So, what we have is a new economic advisor for Obama who pushed “cash for clunkers” which did zip for the long term auto industry in America and, as USA Today reported, measurably raised the cost of used cars for ordinary American families who can’t afford to buy a brand-new car. And now, perhaps, Obama will follow this same pied piper down the road of government spending for job training that isn’t much valued by American businesses.

Just what we need: billions spent on programs that don’t solve our jobs problems. And, remember, this evaluation of one possible component of an Obama jobs plan isn’t being bashed by some right-wing crazies; it’s a business evaluation of this idea researched and publicized by a Democratic Governor’s people here in Colorado.

We've long covered the struggles state Senate Majority Leader John "Per Diem" Morse has with government dollars, but a moment yesterday from the Legislative Council Committee meeting really takes the cake. When the committee, which acts in place of the Legislature outside the legislative session, was meeting to discuss the language of the $3 Billion Prop 103 tax hike initiative, Senator Morse exposed his blinding ignorance of basic Econ 101.

Senator Morse: Raising taxes will slow the Colorado economy. And we heard public testimony that whether it's Keynesian or monetary, or whatever, taking tax dollars out of the private economy slows the private economy. Okay. What about the government economy?

The government economy!?!

Since when did the government become its own economy? We know Senator Morse sees government coffers as his own private expense account, so it's not surprising he now thinks the government is its own economy.